Answers to the survey questions will help us determine the future product roadmap for the Flex SDK, Flash Builder and Flash Catalyst – by completing the survey you’ll get some idea as to the areas we’re thinking of exploring and you’ll have the opportunity to help prioritize what we work on.

The Flex product management team will be taking the results from the survey very seriously and I’d please ask that you spare 15-20 minutes to complete it for us.

Thanks for your help!

Note: for those living outside North America, I can only share your frustration that the sweepstake prizes are not available to you and I hope that we might be able to resolve that issue for a future survey.

For Flash Builder, we also actively request that developers log bugs and feature requests using JIRA, which is hosted at bugs.adobe.com. We review all the feature enhancements that are logged and pay particular attention to those requests that have community support, by way of the number of votes received.

The current top 10 feature requests are listed below, with the full list visible here (note: you will need to login or create an account first as anonymous browsing is currently disabled).

If you have already logged a feature request or voted then thank you! If you haven’t and can spare half an hour, now would be a great time to review the list of requested features, vote for your favourites and add features that you’d like to see in Flash Builder.

Whilst we can’t guarantee to implement every feature request in the next version of the product, we do take the feedback you give us very seriously and it is all used to help shape the future direction of Flash Builder.

If you haven’t used bugs.adobe.com before then you’ll find a quick guide to getting started here.

The updated build of Flex Builder for Linux does not add new functionality, but does extend the timeout and has also been tested on more recent Linux distributions.

If you have any comments or suggestions on Flex Builder for Linux then please drop me an email and I’ll make sure we consider them as we continue to work on our plans for Linux support.

Whilst we’re not yet listing the opportunity on our jobs website, we’re definitely interested in hearing from you if you’d like to join the Platform Evangelism team in Europe.

This is a senior role within Adobe, which will involve being based in the UK, with a significant amount of travel in Europe and also further afield. You’ll interact with designers, developers, press, analysts and customers on a daily basis, will need to be a confident presenter and most likely someone who enjoys developing applications with Flex, ActionScript, Flash Professional, Flash Builder, Flash Catalyst and Adobe AIR. This is a unique opportunity in which no two days are the same and where you get to decide the impact you’ll make…

If this sounds interesting, then send an email providing a brief background on your experience to Enrique Duvos, Group Manager EMEA Platform Evangelism team (email duvos at Adobe.com).

A big part of that role has been spending time out on the road talking about the Flash Platform and showing how to use Flex, Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder to create rich Internet applications. An equally important part of being an evangelist is listening to feedback, suggestions and constructive criticism from designers, developers, technical architects, press & analysts and channeling that information back into the product teams so that we can fix bugs, add new features and improve workflow between tools.

I’m hoping to use some of that experience, gained from talking with many of you, in my new role at Adobe, as Senior Product Manager for Flash Builder.

I’m really excited about taking on this new position – there are lots of great additions in the upcoming version of Flash Builder 4 (currently in beta), including the data centric development tools, the network monitor, support for Flash Catalyst projects and enhancements to core code editing, refactoring and debugging features. But there is a whole lot more that we can do to enhance developer productivity, enable a more fluid design/develop workflow and, with the availability of Flash Player on smart phones and the upcoming mobile version of the Flex framework, to support multi-screen application development.

Whilst the engineering team continues working hard on completing Flash Builder 4 for a release in the first half of 2010, I’ll be joining with more of a view on future versions of Flash Builder and be part of the team planning out what’s important to developers building applications on the Flash Platform.

If you are interested in some of the directions that we’re thinking about and didn’t attend MAX, I’d encourage you to watch the Flash Platform Tooling & Framework Roadmap presentation on Adobe TV.

I’ll be relocating to San Francisco with my family in the New Year and am looking forward to the many new experiences that will come from living in California. I will of course miss being in Europe (although maybe not the winter weather so much), working with all my friends on the European evangelism, PR and marketing teams and being close to the many people I’ve met at conferences, user group meetings, Flash Camps and other local events. I do hope however that I’ll be back during the year to support some of the European events/conferences and to get feedback on our plans for future versions of Flash Builder.

I’m going to do my best to continue blogging here, I’ll continue to be on Twitter and more than ever I welcome your comments and thoughts on how you’d like to see us develop Flash Builder.

Cheers,

Andrew

The presentation builds on the Exploring Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder workflows article that was published on the Adobe Developer Connection site, but also includes some example code which may help if you wish to explore the use of Flash Catalyst generated skins for custom Flex components that extend SkinnableComponent.

With lots of bug fixes and performance improvements in both products, I’m now using these as my regular toolset for RIA design/development – Flash Catalyst in particular has added a significant number of new features over beta 1, including the ability to work with audio/video assets, as well as import and control Flash SWFs that were created in Flash Professional.

I’d like to highlight two updated developer centre articles that I’ve written and also point out a brand new one discussing workflows between Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder:

• Building a data-centric application using Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder 4 (updated for beta 2)
  Learn to create an employee directory application, starting from the Illustrator design, working in Flash Catalyst to create the user interface and moving into Flash Builder to connect to a PHP or ColdFusion back-end.
• Flash Catalyst Best Practices (updated for beta 2)
  A set of hints and tips for designers using Illustrator and Flash Catalyst that will help ensure that projects created in Flash Catalyst will be optimized for use by the development team you’re working with.
• Exploring Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder workflows
  Understand the different workflows that are possible between Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder and learn which is most appropriate for your team and the projects you’re working on.

If you have any comments/feedback on the articles then please do get in touch.

I also asked everyone I spoke to about the importance of the Flash Community and events like Flash on the Beach – here’s what they said on that topic (4 minute video):

Thanks to everyone who went on camera to provide their opinion and thanks to John Davey for another excellent Flash on the Beach conference.

If you’ve got anything to add on these topics then please leave your thoughts in the comments!

The first is an Introduction to BlazeDS and LCDS, taking place next Wednesday (23rd), which will include information about LCDS 3 and the data modeler plug-in for Flash Builder 4. More information about the event and registration details are here.

Then on October 21st, Borre Wessel from Lab49, will present a session covering the development of the Morgan Stanley Matrix application – included will be a discussion on the patterns and practices that made Matrix possible, the challenges faced along the way and guidance for those embarking on a large-scale Flex project. More information about the event and registration details are here.

I hope to see you at one or both of these meetings.